The piece is actually a pretty weak piece. First off the last relevant team was the team AFTER the Final 8 team. Is he forgetting the 99-2000 team went 12-4, beat UCONN in the BE Final winning its first conference Tourney title since 1986 and got a 2 seed in the NCAA's? Not sure how you forget that team.
Secondly the assistant coach stuff has been written about for awhile. I am not sure we should expect anything major. The Jim Ferry thing doesn't excite me. I mentioned Ollie only to show how he should think outside the box. The fact is we need someone with some recruiting ties, Ferry doesn't bring anything to the table in that area. He is a yawner. Go to Masiello at Manhattan and offer him a sizable check to resign from Manhattan and bring him SJU. Again just throwing stuff up against a wall. And for those who say why would Mas leave Manhattan as HC? Because if you look at the last 3 years his program has done nothing, 9-11, 5-15, 9-9 in League and in 7 years he has zero MAAC regular season titles and 1 second place and 1 3rd place. I understand he won 2 tourney titles but anyone can get hot over a few game. My point is he is not exactly killing it and I don't think he is getting a call for a high major job anytime soon. Again just want to see some names out of the box. Otherwise just roll with the staff you have.
Third does he really think the talent level is the same here as that stretch of SJU basketball, 98-2000 where he thinks a season like 98-99 is possible next year? Really? I am not convinced it is better than the 2013-14 Lavin team that I agree underachieved but had serious depth and talent. The 98-99 team not only was loaded but was coming off a 2nd place finish in the BE from the prior year. Similarly after the 98-99 team the 99-2000 team still had big time talent and added Glover. This current team is NOT loaded, not coming off an NCAA year and has had 3 straight years of complete irrelevance. Now having said that clearly Zach heard the same thing I did, 2 year plan. Because he would not be writing this piece if he did not expect but more importantly was not TOLD that the expectation next year is to make a HUGE leap. But here is where we need to keep this piece for reference. Because again he is saying next year has the chance to put SJU at a level they have not reached in 2 decades. So that means he expects the team to be better than the 2 NCAA teams under Lavin the 2002 NCAA team under Jarvis and the other NIT teams. That's fine. I sure as hell hope he is right, but that is a QUANTUM leap. He is banking on a lot of improvement. So here is my point, if SJU is sitting at 6-7 with some close losses and there is a piece by Zach next year talking about how SJU has shown marked improvement I want people to reference this piece today, because that is not what the expectation we should have next year in year 4. No way. And now it is written that we should expect a LOT more.